


youth

by quibbler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quibbler/pseuds/quibbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hears the onrushing thump-thump of feet on the floor--not one, but multiple--and she doesn't think twice, doesn't even pause as she sends curse after curse at the onslaught. For a moment she nearly laughs out loud--if she told her family that she was fighting evil, they would think her lost in her comic book delusions.</p><p>She is alone and now she wonders if that was the plan all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	youth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 [welcome home ficathion](http://kolms.livejournal.com/19212.html), un-betaed. JK Rowling owns everything!

A shout echoes down the corridor, but she cannot see its owner in the darkness that shrouds her. She holds her wand aloft, moving with a wild frenzied fervor, slashing through the air at the unseen Death Eaters in their cloaks black as night, hidden too well. She inwardly curses her impetuous decision to not disguise herself as she sends a Stunning spell toward the flash of silver that glints off of a mask, fighting the urge to grin as she hears the unmistakable thunk of a body hitting the ground. She hears the onrushing thump-thump of feet on the floor--not one, but multiple--and she doesn't think twice, doesn't even pause as she sends curse after curse at the onslaught. For a moment she nearly laughs out loud--if she told her family that she was fighting evil, they would think her lost in her comic book delusions.

She is alone and now she wonders if that was the plan all along.

Perhaps she should be afraid--let her fear be all-consuming, tearing away at her insides and rendering her incapable of conscious thought, let it be the monster that haunts her dreams and most of her waking hours--or perhaps she should value safety--let it keep her warm through the nightly chills, guard it like her most valued possession. (It isn't--her most valued possessions are people and they don't belong to her.) Safely is of no value to her, not when there is a war being fought, when others are risking their lives for a future that looks bright. (Everything looks brighter than darkness, the shadow that takes her closest friends and never releases them, the darkness that steals the innocence from the young.)

She fights for a world less coloured by prejudice.

Lily doesn't lack fear. Fear dwells within her like a festering wound that poisons her blood, but she can't fear for herself--Gryffindor courage, she thinks bitterly, but she sees no traits that distinguish to which house someone once belonged or what their blood lineage is, just two sides in chaos and craving destruction with those caught in between lost and helpless, hopeless. She doesn't fear death, doesn't fear it's skeletal claws reaching for her ankles, leaving her ice-cold but never any detectable trace, just the fleeting ghost-pale shadow in its wake.

She fears for the lives of her loved ones. She is reckless, hot-tempered, brash; everything that may fuel the fire around her and burn her to ashes.

There is another shout-- _Sirius_ , she thinks, hearing a bark-like laugh that confirms her suspicions--and suddenly it's as though her heart leaps to her throat when she hears a voice, weakened but still reverberating.

"LILY? LILY, RUN!"

The last thing she sees is a blue light that is tinged a sickening purple by the red that joins it, rushing toward her faster than she can blink.

\-----

It is so bright that she thinks she must have died. The afterlife, the purgatory of which her childhood years in church spoke so much. Her eyes flutter open and the groan that escapes her cracked lips sounds alien, too quiet to be hers, she's sure. An accompaniment that jars, dissonant instead of harmonic.

"Lily?"

James' voice cracks on her name. His face swims in front of her vision, his features blurry. She briefly wonders if she's dreaming, if the blood on his face is hers, if the cuts hurt like the pain that cuts through her body. She wants to retch but there is nothing in her stomach, her head feeling woolly. Her arms are leaden.

"You're awake," he breathes, pressing feverish kisses to her brow that she can't feel, only the slightest pressure that indicates she's real, that she's living. She frowns and lifts her hand to her head, wincing. Her fingers find cloth, though there is no blood on her fingers as she stares at her too pale fingertips, no red staining the ivory. Her mind reels to a distant memory--herself at the age of five, when she fell from the oak tree in front of her house. The Muggle doctors put needles in her arms with tubes attached to an IV and she woke up in a sterile white room like this one.

It seems like decades pass before she makes the distinction between fact and fiction: St. Mungos, not the Muggle hospital back in Cokeworth.

"James? What happened?" As James opened his mouth to reply, the door creaked open and his jaw snapped shut.

"Ahh, Miss Evans, you're awake." The Healer looked too young, too fresh-faced to be treating victims of war, but who was she to judge? Lily Evans, the biggest hypocrite around. "We almost cound keep Mr. Potter in a bed long enough to fix the worst of his injuries before he bolted out to find you. He hasn't left your side since."

She frowns, weakly squeezing James' hand to get his attention. Futile, really, since she could feel his eyes watching her since she awoke. "How--"--she dreads the answer, using all her willpower to sit herself up--"--how long have we been here?"

"Three days." Her eyes widen and the Healer coughs. "I'll leave you two to talk. Healer Swyft will be with you shortly."

"Three days," she repeats, stunned. James looks like he hasn't slept, hasn't wanted to succumb to the nightmares that she knows he has nightly, the ones that she knows all too well because they dwell in her mind, too. (They both hardly sleep these days, but now it's so plainly written on his face.) There are partially healed cuts and scratches covering his hands and face, a large blue bruise on his forehead to match the purple-blue shadows under his eyes. His jaw is clenched, his cheeks looking too sunken. She brushes her fingers lightly against his brow.

"We're too young for this," he whispers, the fear of loss clouding his mind. They're both too tempestuous, too willing to act without thinking. " _You're_ too young for this."

She musters the best glare she can give in her condition. "I'm two months older than you, Potter, and I didn't hear you arguing before we left." Her voice softens as she stares blankly at the wall across from her. "That's why we fight. We have so much more to live for, so we fight until our last breath."


End file.
